


The Bend In The Road

by zulu



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M, for:deelaundry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-14
Updated: 2009-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>House looks through the curves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bend In The Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deelaundry](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=deelaundry).



> Written for deelaundry, for my [DRABBLERAMA: Road Trip Edition challenge](http://queenzulu.livejournal.com/407891.html). Thank you to thedeadparrot and shutterbug_12 for the betas.

**The Bend In The Road**

Here's the difference between Wilson and House: Wilson drives a car--silver Volvo, staid, _dull_\--it's not even a standard--and House drives the bike, which is all kinds of cool and orange enough to make it practically mandatory to wear shades when approaching it.

This has nothing to do with mid-life crises, no matter what Wilson says. The bike's practical. Even premium gas is cheaper than filling House's decades-old guzzler. As far as trying to regain lost youth goes, House classifies both Bonnie and Julie under that particular umbrella. Wilson objects that he was nowhere _near_ middle-aged when he married Bonnie.

House represses a smirk because Wilson didn't even bother to deny the Julie part of that accusation, and says, "You've been middle-aged since you were twenty."

Wilson opens his mouth, pretending incredulous, playing offended. House likes him best this way--the careful jaw-drop that says he's happy enough with House's games today. No lectures on the horizon, no angst over House's latest stunt, no cow-eyed sadness that House is being self-destructive.

House almost wants to wrap his hand around the back of Wilson's neck and haul him into a kiss. Wilson's in the perfect state of so-close-to-untidy that a kiss is the only way to finish the job, heading straight past disarray to disheveled. His tie's off, his collar's unbuttoned, his cuffs are rolled to his elbows--and he's grinning down at House, who's maneuvering a step stool closer to the bike and carefully contriving to lower himself down without dumping himself on his ass. House keeps hold of his cane and the Phillips screwdriver _and_ manages not to knock over the can of chain lube sitting next to his right foot, all while Wilson stands there with his hands on his hips _watching_, the able-bodied bastard.

House finally gets himself planted on the stool and leans down to check the tension in the chain. No more than an inch of give, which is good, because House can't crouch down to tighten it himself and he's too impatient to take the bike to a shop. He rotates the back tire and checks again, looking for any place the chain is slack. Keeping his mind on the job.

The kiss would taste of his beer, of Wilson's lemonade, of the heat of the sun beating down on House's shoulders as he hunches closer to the bike and picks up the lube to start spraying the chain. Another few spins of the back tire and all the links are coated, and House's fingers are smeared black with grease. It'd streak Wilson's neck where House grabbed him; it'd mess up the crisp whiteness of his dress shirt. House is wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of jeans that have seen more than a little maintenance on the bike, and even after washing the grease stains show on the denim and the grey cotton.

He wants Wilson like this, because it's spring, and because he's already hooked up the bike's battery again; he's checked the brake fluid and changed the oil; and Wilson sits his chino-clad ass down on the step in front of the apartment, leaning his head back against the brick, closing his eyes against the sun, so that he's--_illuminated_. That's the word that comes to mind, but House shoves it ruthlessly aside, because it's a damn sappy word to think about anyone, let alone Wilson.

"Hand me the tire gauge," House snaps. Wilson opens his eyes and House nearly regrets interrupting the quiet moment, covering it by waving Wilson over to be useful. But then Wilson slaps the gauge into his hand, and House feels like a surgeon conducting a bound-to-be-successful operation, with Wilson as his faithful scrub nurse. In half an hour or less he'll be opening the choke and pressing the bike's starter, revving the throttle until the first few coughs turn over into the blatting roar of the engine. He can forget about kissing Wilson then. When he gets out on the road and shifts up into sixth, he's as fast as he damn well wants to be, and his whole body's so busy driving that he can let his mind drift.

The problem is, what it drifts to is this: House rides the bike, and Wilson drives his car. House twists the cap off the front tire's valve stem and presses the gauge against it, checking the readout (Wilson bought him a fucking _digital_ tire gauge, as if his old one wasn't _shiny_ enough to get the job done--Wilson's a _car_ driver, and it shows). Forty PSI almost exactly; on the back tire too; House won't even need to stop at the gas station to use the air hose.

House pushes his stool back from the bike, then, and stands up slowly. He grabs his beer from the stoop and takes a drink. The beer's warm from sitting in the sun, but somehow that's good too, the scent of all this grease and sun-sweat. The bike looks perfect. Even last year's bugs and road dust have been cleaned off--that much, Wilson volunteered to do, and House let him since it wasn't like he could screw it up. House wants to rock the bike off the center stand, lift his leg over the seat, turn his key in the ignition, feel the engine rumble underneath him for the first time since fall; he wants to escape.

Because the difference between riding the bike and driving a car is this. In a car, you stare through the windshield at the car ahead. You're looking at taillights. You react one disaster at a time. Everything you see is immediate.

On a bike, heeling over into turns, you can't look directly ahead unless you want to drive right off the goddamn road. You have to look through the curves; you have to stare ahead as if you can see around the corners. The only way to keep the road, the bike, your body all where they're supposed to be is to look where you want to be going, not where you're about to end up. The cars ahead and around you are peripheral. At ninety miles an hour, if you don't want to end up splattered across a hundred feet of asphalt, you look for the disasters that are coming long before they arrive.

So when House thinks of kissing Wilson--when he thinks, _fuck, I haven't even come _close_ to dying in a year_\--when he looks at Wilson and doesn't see the restlessness, the sleepless shadows, the down-turned crimp of his mouth that means he's missing Amber--House knows it's dangerous to look directly ahead, where kissing leads to sex. House has seen the way Wilson's eyes strayed down his body while he fixed the bike. He's seen the small smile that hides at the corner of Wilson's mouth when they toss innuendos back and forth. But House looks through the curves, and he can see farther ahead than sex, which Wilson never can. What sex leads to is House completely fucking up. Dying, or trying to, for no good reason at all. His leg or his personality or his pain going too far (or not able to go far enough, to say what needs to be said).

House can see the disaster coming, so he keeps thoughts of Wilson in his peripheral vision. If he can't erase them, he can at least ignore them. He can take the bike out for a spring shakedown cruise, and pretend that's really why he made Wilson bring him beer, and an Allen key he doesn't need, just so that he'd sit in the sun and watch House pour fuel stabilizer into the bike's tank, as if he needs the supervision.

Wilson finishes his glass of lemonade at about the same time House takes the last swallow of his beer. House hands him his bottle. It's an excuse to look down, at the clutter on the sidewalk. He'll get Wilson to gather his tools and put them away--Wilson likes that sort of thing. House thinks he's nearly made it. He's thrown himself into another corner, and he's about to lean the bike back upright and accelerate, when Wilson sets the beer bottle next to his glass on the step. House straightens against the brick wall when Wilson turns to him. Wilson's smiling, slightly, and House can see a hint of sweat at Wilson's temples as he comes closer. He stares at the line of Wilson's throat for another second, trying to think of a line, a joke, an excuse.

When Wilson kisses him, all House can hear is the roar of the engine, and the bike's not even on. The sun's too bright; that's the only reason House closes his eyes. The heat he feels, though, is Wilson's mouth, and then his tongue. It should be shocking, the slight roughness of Wilson's skin (for once, he hasn't shaved fanatically even on a Sunday), the stubborn way Wilson's not _giving up_, pressing closer instead, his weight just enough to feel like an invitation. But it's not a surprise; it's every move House has been thinking out and discarding as fucking insane. It's exactly all the risks he hasn't wanted to take. House kisses back, feeling the fluttering clench of nerves and arousal mixing low in his stomach. Somehow he's got Wilson's shirtfront bunched in his fist, engine grease making wrinkled black handprints on the cotton. When House backs off long enough to catch Wilson's eyes, he sees a black streak across Wilson's cheek. House must've rubbed at his face at some point, because he's transferred it to Wilson. A mark that means this is _happening_.

"What the hell was that for?" he says, sharply, as if this is all Wilson's fault, and nothing he leaned into, trying to memorize the way Wilson tastes in under a minute.

"House..." Wilson shakes his head, and chuckles. "You're an idiot."

He's still standing too close, so House flattens his palm against Wilson's chest and shoves him back. Wilson goes, easily, and starts cleaning up the tools even though House didn't ask. House taps his cane against the sidewalk, watching Wilson's back. "That's not an answer," he says.

Wilson glances over his shoulder, tosses a screwdriver in the toolbox with a clatter, and says, "Then you were asking the wrong question."

It's not fair that Wilson knows exactly what to say to make this all right. No answer, but a challenge instead. Wilson thinks he's safer in his car than House could ever be on the bike, but after this, all House can think is that even when you see the crash coming, sometimes you can't avoid it. The bike's more maneuverable, but House has never been known to back down from a game of chicken.

House waits for a moment longer before he turns to make his way up the steps and into the apartment. Wilson's free to figure out the rest. House isn't taking the bike out today. Wilson's free to come in when he's finished tidying (if only to wash the grease off his shirt). Whatever else happens, at this point, can't be called House's fault.

And for once, House has no idea what he'll find around the bend.

_end_


End file.
